Semester 2 - Week 5 - Brinkley

 In class this week we created a lot more valves, Kierstin was puncturing the holes and putting the tubing in, and then I was sealing them with soft silicone. We checked back later in the week and only some of the valves works. The sealing seemed to be good, but sometimes the tubes were stuck into the part at strange angles, causing flow issues. The one that did work was the smallest of all of the valves, so Kierstin created a mold that has many of these valves, so we can practice some more. 

On Monday, Kierstin and I went into the lab so we could try different suture sizes and material at different pressures, so we could see which ones work the best for us. When we got in there, the system had bubbles, so we had to resurge the system which took a lot of time. Then, the pressure sensor we realized was leaking out of the bottom because it was broken, so we had to put in a new sensor, and purge the system again. After we got everything set up, we tried multiple resistor materials and sizes at one set length of 1 mm. We were able to determine that 3/0 polyester with a super glue coating seemed to work the best. It allowed flow at high eye pressure, and prevented it at 20+ mmHg. 

Here is the data that I was able to organize

I poured more molds on Tuesday, so we will have them for class on Wednesday. When I was in the lab, Fady was in the lab doing bench top testing, so I assisted him for a little in trouble shooting why it was not working.